Colors
by emygrl99
Summary: It's common belief that once you figure out what your match's Color is, it won't be long until you run into them. When Ace had been forced to abruptly stop a show one day at work to save a teen from falling into the lion exhibit, he hadn't been expecting much. AceLu Soulmate AU


**Yo! So I was planning to hold off on uploading this for some time when I wasn't in the writing mood and didn't feel like uploading anything, but then I noticed that I was almost to the 6k words needed for me to become a beta reader so I decided to go ahead and put it up.**

 **I'm a complete sucker for soul mate AUs, so when I saw this idea on Tumblr I HAD to write it. If you know any soul mate AUs you have to tell me them it's the law idc how whatever it is. Anyways, enough of my rambling. Enjoy! :D**

 **Beta'd by LeafyxThiefy**

The first time Ace picked up a Color chart was in elementary school. His teacher had passed out the sheets to the entire class and after explaining what it was, Ace had looked up at her with confusion, asking if something was wrong with it. She had smiled fondly at him, told him to look again, one of them must have been a little different from the others. He looked again, more critically this time, but no. Everything was perfectly colored, nothing was gray at all. He could see all of the usuals; blue, green, brown, he could even pick out the slight differences in the shades of hazel and blue-green. He could tell the more unusual Colors apart too, like brown so dark it was almost black and a blue so light it was practically grey. Ace had asked about the blue-grey one, but his teacher said that his match's Color would look odd to him, blurry almost. Ace carefully looked again, but they all looked crystal clear to him. Well, as clear as a cheap printed out piece of paper could be.

He frowned and threw the paper on the ground, claiming that it must be broken because everything looked perfectly normal to him. His teacher had looked down at Ace with sad, knowing eyes, eyes that Ace hated instantly. They were the same eyes his parents had given him at dinner that night when he mentioned how nothing was blurry on that weird chart his teacher had given him at school.

After some snooping around, Ace realized that there was only explanation as to why he could see all the Colors; he didn't have a match. He was born without one, so his eyes never had a Color to blur out. The chances of that happening are astonishingly rare, so rare that it's only happened a handful of times in all of human history, according to Wikipedia. _Guess I proved them wrong,_ Ace thought bitterly as he snapped his laptop shut.

Ace obstinately refused to be affected by that knowledge, but if he was honest with himself, the fact that he had no match bothered Ace deeply. He just couldn't figure out what was so different about him. Did it have something to do with his personality? His body? Or was it something in his genetics? No amount of research could give him anything more than guesses, so after a while Ace stopped looking for an answer.

He never brought it up to anybody, and whenever someone asked, he'd lie, say their eyes were green or brown or something else. He never said the same Color twice, and when his friends had picked up on it, Ace had made it into a little game to never repeat a Color, feigning indifference. After a week, he had been forced to move to more unusual Colors like pale purple or bright red, which was always a laugh to imagine. Ace hid behind the game, acting like he had a match but didn't want to reveal their Color, and his friends believed him, a fact that broke Ace's heart just that little bit more each time.

The only person who knew about it was Ace's best friend, Marco. He accidentally let it slip when they'd gotten drunk one night, something Ace had immediately regretted as he watched his friend warily. But Marco didn't push him away like Ace had expected him to, he hadn't even given Ace that look he'd received countless times, that pitying stare that suggested he was somehow less without a match. On the contrary, they'd gotten even closer, to the point where Ace thought of Marco as a brother, the one person he could go to with his troubles.

Some time later, with a little persuasion from Marco, Ace got a job at the zoo. They were apparently having trouble with a red-tailed hawk they'd recently acquired, and Marco, knowing Ace's fondness of birds, had recommended him for the job. Apparently they were really desperate for a trainer, cause they hired Ace in the blink of an eye despite his obvious lack of credentials. That wasn't to say Ace didn't know how to handle birds, he'd just never gotten around to getting all the necessary certificates. Ace had always had a special connection with animals, they understood each other.

It hadn't taken long for the hawk to grow fond of Ace, an hour to be exact. The hawk would now nudge Ace's hand and nip at ears and fingers affectionately whenever he was around, an affection Ace would reciprocate by sneaking him food whenever possible and occasionally 'accidentally' letting the hawk out of his cage so the bird could stretch its wings.

His coworkers claimed their bond was a miracle. Ace claimed that abusive handling had been what made the hawk aggressive in the first place. The point was, the hawk was a far ways away from the testy bird who'd bite anybody that came too close it had been when they'd first brought in and everyone was grateful. Ace had been put in charge of the hawk as its trainer; he'd even been allowed to pick a name for the bird, a sure sign that his managers appreciated the work he'd done. It only took a full twenty seconds of hard, critical thinking, for Ace to decide on Fawkes for the bird's name. Yes, like the phoenix from Harry Potter. He was a book nerd, deal with it.

After allowing the hawk a week to adjust to his habitat, Ace's managers had told him they'd like Ace to put on a special show with Fawkes in a couple of weeks if possible, an opportunity Ace had jumped on immediately. He spent a full week and a half training Fawkes from dawn to dusk, teaching him cool tricks and stunts that kids and adults alike were sure to be impressed with.

The show, however, had been a bit of a disaster. Ace was nervous about standing in front of all those people, and Fawkes had picked up on that, doing little more than flying over the crowd, only doing one of the tricks Ace tried to get him to do half the time. Still, once it was over people had clapped politely and a few kids came up to him, asking questions about the hawk.

The years passed, and Ace had come to think of the zoo like his second home now. His shows with Fawkes had become something like a feature of the zoo. Ace, now confident with crowds, was glad to see the number of spectators growing with each show they put on. In time, Ace eventually forgot his depression over not having a match. He didn't need a match the be happy, he was content with his life just the way it was.

One evening after a particularly good show, Ace was feeding Fawkes when he noticed the bird's sickly looking eyes. They were an off greyish yellow color, definitely not natural for a bird to have. For a terrifying moment, Ace thought that Fawkes had somehow gotten sick despite how well he was being cared for, but no. Fawkes had been perfectly fine at the show, Ace would have noticed if something was off about the bird. He examined Fawkes closely anyways, looking for anything that seemed out of place, feeling for any strange bumps, but Ace couldn't find anything wrong other than the discoloration in the eyes. So did that mean the bird was fine?

He called Marco in, wanting to get a second opinion, and watched nervously as his friend went through the same motions Ace had, albeit with more difficulty since Fawkes wasn't as fond of Marco as he was Ace.

"I don't see anything wrong, Ace," Marco finally told him, stepping back from the ruffled bird and shaking his head.

"Can't you see the weird color his eyes are? It's like a greyish yellow, definitely not healthy," Ace insisted stubbornly and Marco looked at him in confusion.

"Ace, what are you talking about? Fawkes's eyes are orange."

"You think I don't know that?" Ace snapped, and Marco motioned for him to look again, looking entirely unconvinced.

"I'm telling you, they're a perfectly healthy orange."

Ace looked at the bird again, but Fawkes's eyes were definitely that odd grey-yellow color, there was no mistaking it. Actually, they looked kinda fuzzy to him, and Ace found he couldn't stare at them too closely without feeling weird.

 _Wait, blurry grey..?_

Ace stared blankly at the bird, not sure where his thoughts were taking him, but when the realization hit, he stumbled back in shock feeling like he'd just been bowled over. He thought back to elementary school when his teacher showed him that chart.

" _Your match's Color should look odd to you, blurry almost."_

Did that mean… Ace had a match after all? And it was a goddamn _bird_?

"Marco, is it possible to be matched with an animal?" Ace looked to his friend wearily, praying the answer would be no. As much as he liked Fawkes, the bird could be a stubborn prick and easily get into a fowl mood, a trait Ace's coworkers said reminded them of Ace. He personally didn't see the similarity, but that wasn't important right now.

"Matched with an animal? What the hell are you… oh. _oh._ " Marco reflexively took a step back as Ace's question plus his strange behavior clicked in his mind. Marco let out a loud laugh, bending over at the force of it as he laughed. Ace watched grumpily, not appreciating his friend's lack of seriousness towards his question.

"I'm being serious here!" Ace yelled, and Marco sobered up at the younger man's indignant tone.

"No, you can't be matched to a bird. Fawkes has his own soul mate, one that he can actually breed with," Marco explained with a chuckle, and Ace let out a sigh of relief. He wasn't meant to spend the rest of his life with a bird, thank God.

When Ace got home that night, he immediately ran to the computer, intent on finding out more about his match. Apparently it was very, very uncommon for people to be born with abnormal Colors, like orange, but not impossible. That's why the Color chart had always looked perfectly fine to Ace, it was because his match's Color wasn't on any of them. He'd never considered the idea that his match had unusually colored eyes, and now Ace was cursing himself for not looking further into it. He could've easily saved himself those years of depression believing that he was meant to die alone.

It's common belief that once you figure out what your match's Color is, it won't be long until you run into them. When Ace had been forced to abruptly stop a show the next day at work to save a teen from falling into the lion exhibit, he hadn't been expecting much. It was one of those sunken exhibits that let you look into them from above to see the animals, and this particular teen had apparently gotten the bright idea to try climbing on top of the fence. Ace got there just in time to grab the back of the teen's shirt just as he tipped over the edge and with a grunt and a few choice words, Ace hauled the smaller body to safety.

Once he was sure the teen was okay, Ace grabbed his shoulders and turned him around, ready to scold him for his stupidity, but one look at the teen's face had Ace stopping short, his words dying in his throat. Ace could feel his stomach drop and his heart leap into his throat at the same time as he looked into the teen's eyes. They were a strange color, one he had never seen before. He struggled to describe the exact shade they were and soon gave up.

The easygoing expression the teen had been wearing faded when he saw Ace. His face now closely mirrored Ace's own bizarre mix of fascination and surprise, and they both unknowingly moved closer to get a better look, Ace's interrupted show long forgotten.

"You..." Ace trailed off, not knowing what to say but at the same time unable to look away. "Your eyes..." The teen said nothing as he gave Ace a wide smile, and God, Ace never knew that a smile could be that bright.

"I'm Luffy!" the teen introduced himself happily, surprising Ace by pulling him into a tight hug. "Your eyes are so cool!"

Ace laughed in disbelief and let himself be hugged by the teen. It's not that he didn't want to wrap his arms around the younger boy, he did, it was more like he couldn't. Luffy had pinned Ace's arms to his side, rendering them immobile at the moment, an act Ace found oddly endearing.

The hug itself was brief, but it seemed to last forever for Ace, and when Luffy pulled away, Ace noticed something incredible. All the people from his show had gathered around the pair curiously, and the grey shirts that most of them were been wearing before had changed color.

 _Orange_ , his mind supplied, but the shirts looked less orange than Luffy's eyes somehow. Not that they were paler, but not as intense? Ace couldn't explain it, and he decided that it didn't really matter. When Fawkes landed on his shoulders, Ace noticed the bird's eyes were no longer the greyish yellow color from before, and Ace wondered randomly how he had missed something so obvious.

Needless to say, Ace got off work as soon as possible by claiming that he didn't feel well and he spent the rest of the day with Luffy, marveling at the changed world around him. Ace couldn't help but stare at all the orange things around him that he'd never noticed, but none of it could ever compare to the orange in Luffy's eyes.

The hours stretched into days, which stretched into weeks and months and eventually into years. Now, Luffy was driving Ace down a bumpy, forested path on their anniversary, Ace wondering where the hell they were going despite Luffy's insistence that he had the perfect gift for Ace.

When they pulled up to a campsite, Ace laughed out loud and gave Luffy a kiss. Of course he would bring Ace to a camping site for their anniversary. It was so utterly _Luffy_ , Ace wondered how he could have thought they were going anywhere else. They spent the day together fooling around while trying to set up their tent and exploring in the surrounding woods until Luffy's stomach rumbled loudly, and they headed back the the campsite, where Luffy promptly started up a fire in the fire pit, already pulling out packs of hotdogs and hamburgers to grill up.

Ace, however, was mesmerized by the fire. It flickered and twisted and curled in a thousand shades or orange and brown and yellow, unnervingly reminding Ace of the mischievous twinkle Luffy got in his eyes when he thought of a good idea that always ended up landing him in trouble, or the dark glint they got when somebody hurt Ace or one of his friends, or the way they glowed when he was telling a joke, and their glazed look when he was barely awake, all loving and utterly trusting, and G _od_. Ace felt a lump in his throat and it wasn't until Luffy was right in front of him, wiping at Ace's cheeks that Ace realized he was crying.

He looked up at the man he'd grown to love over the years, and Ace knew that Luffy understood exactly what he was feeling in that moment. Luffy had felt the exact same the first time Ace had taken him to a beach, when Luffy caught his first glimpse of the ocean; a deep cerulean blue that was somehow exactly the color of Ace's eyes. Luffy had cried then too. They had both grown up believing that they had no match, so the fact that they'd found each other was a surreal thought for both of them, even after all these years.

Luffy had shown Ace fire, and Ace had shown Luffy the ocean. Like fire, Luffy was quick to anger and often acted without thinking things through, which sometimes hurt the people around him, but Luffy in turn brought warmth and light to Ace's life. Luffy challenged Ace to think in new ways when he was stuck in a rut. And like the ocean, Ace acted as a steady and soothing presence for the younger man, but could easily turn deadly and merciless when someone he cared for was put in danger. Ace was the only one who could calm Luffy's rage, and Luffy was the only one who could always make Ace laugh, no matter what mood the older man was in.

Of course, sometimes Ace would get angry and restless, lashing out at everyone and Luffy's go-get-em attitude would only rile him up more. And sometimes when Luffy was moody and restless, Ace would say the exact wrong thing, depressing Luffy further rather that cheering him up. And even worse, when they were both angry, there was nothing that could stop them from pushing the other to the extreme. They weren't perfect for each other, not by a long shot, but they loved each other, and at the end of the day, they knew that the other would be by their side no matter what, and that's what mattered most in the end.


End file.
